A crack in barrier to zone pricing ban?

Published 7:48 pm, Friday, July 23, 2010

Credit goes to members of Stamford's and Greenwich's delegations in the General Assembly for a new law that gives power to the attorney general to prevent fuel companies from playing games with the cost of gasoline.

Signed this week by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the law requires fuel companies to provide information about mergers and acquisitions to the attorney general's office. The purpose is to prevent entities with a large share of the market from manipulating prices in ways that hurt small business owners and drivers.

For example, the attorney general will now be able to subpoena information to see if a large company is setting prices at its stations artificially low in order to drive a single-station operator out of business; or if companies are engaging in fuel price gouging in the wake of a disaster like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the bill has more important implications for our part of the state. It could represent rare momentum in the fight to outlaw zone pricing, the practice by which gasoline companies charge significantly more for gas in lower Fairfield County than in other parts of the state.

The bill is not the ban on zone pricing that is necessary, but it gives the attorney general some power to control price fixing, which is much needed movement toward fairness.

"It's a step in the right direction," said state Rep. Fred Camillo of Greenwich, who co-sponsored the bill and fought for its approval. "We'll bring (a bill to ban zone pricing) back again."

Our legislators have fought for years to end zone pricing, introducing bill after bill to ban it, only to run up against the majority of their colleagues who represent other parts of the state where gas prices are lower.

With the new law, "we found a way to advance the ball," said state Rep. William Tong of Stamford, who helped craft the bill.

During this past legislative session, they for the first time were able to get a zone pricing ban voted out of committee.